Optimists Die First
Age 12+
Personal & Social Issues: Disability & Special Needs Personal & Social Issues: Death & Bereavement Romance & Relationships Stories Family & Home Stories
Petula has avoided friendship and happiness ever since tragedy struck her family and took her beloved younger sister Maxine. Worse, Petula blames herself. If only she'd kept an eye on her sister, if only she'd sewn the button Maxine choked on better, if only...
Now her anxiety is getting out of control, she is forced to attend the world’s most hopeless art therapy class. But one day, in walks the Bionic Man: a charming, amazingly tall newcomer called Jacob, who is also an amputee. Petula's ready to freeze him out, just like she did with her former best friend, but when she’s paired with Jacob for a class project, there’s no denying they have brilliant ideas together – ideas like remaking Wuthering Heights with cats.
But Petula and Jacob each have desperately painful secrets in their pasts – and when the truth comes out, there’s no way Petula is ready for it.
Creators
Susin Nielsen got her start writing for popular television series, Degrassi Junior High. Since then, she’s written for many Canadian TV shows and her young adult novels have received considerable critical acclaim. Word Nerd and My Messed-Up Life won multiple Young Readers’ Choice Awards. The Reluctant Journal of Henry K. Larsen won the UKLA Award, the prestigious Governor General’s Literary Award, the Canadian Library Association’s Children’s Book of the Year and many Young Readers’ Choice Awards, while We Are All Made of Molecules was longlisted for the Carnegie Medal. Susin lives in Vancouver with her family and two extremely destructive cats.
Reviews
Hilarious, heart-warming and beautifully unexpected – a real keeper
Lisa Williamson
Susin Nielsen has produced a richly comic story featuring a cast of mismatched, engaging characters
Guardian, The Best New Children's Books supplement
Entertaining but also poignant
Irish Times
One of the most talented teen writers working today
BookTrust
Grief and guilt permeate Nielsen’s empathic and deeply moving story, balanced by sharply funny narration and dialogue.
Publishers Weekly, starred review
Nielsen writes with sensitivity, empathy, and humour
Kirkus, starred review
The novel’s greatest strength is its handling of the characters’ very real burdens with sympathy, wit, and not an ounce of melodrama. Nielsen excels at depicting troubled, clever teenagers
Starred review, School Library Journal
Optimists Die First is both funny and heartbreaking. Fans of Rainbow Rowell’s Eleanor And Park will love it.
Red Magazine Online
Nielsen has such a gift for creating authentic teenagers… Infused with offbeat humour, this is a book with a great voice and a big, big heart
The Bookseller
A contemporary story written with compassion, empathy and wit
Best New Children's Books Guide, produced by the Publishers' Association and published in the Guardian 2018
Readers will be gripped by Petula’s story and the way she tells it; Nielsen gives her a totally authentic teen voice, loaded with cynicism, sarcasm, humour and flashes of hope.
Lovereading
Nielsen has a pitch-perfect ear for the dialogue of the unconventional, the betrayed, the guilty
Books for Keeps
Honest, thought-provoking, life-affirming and a truly wonderful read… this title will help to promote discussion and openness about mental health issues
Carousel
A quirky and deeply moving story of friendship, love, trust, grief and guilt written in an engaging style with laugh-out-loud moments
ReadingZone
Nielsen’s writing brims with off-beat humour, authentic voices and real heart
Buyer's Guide Spring 2017
The book enlightened me on how we may judge people at first, but we may not appreciate their unique personality until we get to know them as a true person.
for lovereading4Kids.co.uk
Nielsen writes with warmth and sensitivity, creating relationships that are believable and nuanced…It’s a book I couldn’t stop thinking about
for lovereading4Kids.co.uk
I could not put this book down!
for lovereading4Kids.co.uk
Nielsen tackles anxiety really well, but there’s also laugh out loud humour, romance and the underlying importance of family and friendship
Askews & Holts Library Services